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Motivated, If Soft-Spoken

That's been over the space of more than 6 months now, so... a lot of small bursts of puzzling. (See our first review here.)

It's a home that seems littler than its official counts (3br/2ba, 1650 sq. ft.) would suggest – probably it's the tiny (but remodeled) kitchen that stands out to influence that view.

But it's a street-to-alley lot up near the crest of Laurel near 33rd, with treetop views to the south and west. The location is a quiet little pocket of the Trees. A cute home there should find buyers, no?

No, not yet. But the newest chop to $1.059m might start to get a buzz going. It's now down more than $200k (-16%) from the start at $1.268m last year.

The newest cut also came with a critical change in the listing language.

To appreciate the change, you have to take a look at the whole writeup. Every word of the listing description is in ALL CAPS, which – online anyway – we interpret as SCREAMING! WHY ARE YOU SCREAMING AT ME?!?

But the newest words aren't in all caps. Softly planted in the midst of all the hype is this phrase, in lower case: "seller very motivated."

That follows 8 exclamation points from the prior sentence.

It's quite an effect. Guitars are wailing, drums are pounding, the audience is waving fists in unison, and the arena goes shockingly silent for a single, quiet moment. The lead singer bellies up and whispers, "seller very motivated." Nice effect.

Where should 3201 Laurel wind up?

Look down the same block along Laurel to 3100 Laurel, an awkward corner lot with a hideous, dated house on it – that home's getting deep into a remodel now, but that inferior house on an inferior lot was purchased for $995k a month ago. (See "Laurel Deal's Done.") Surely a cuter house in a better location at just $64k more has a chance, finally?